Pericles Structured Essay
a) Briefly describe the manner and impact of Pericles’ death (5 marks)
Pericles died of the plague. According to Plutarch, ‘it was not a violent or acute
attack such as others had suffered, but a kind of dull lingering fever, which persisted
through a number of different symptoms and gradually wasted his bodily strength and
undermined his noble spirit’. Plutarch also wrote that on his death bed, Pericles’
friends who were leading men of Athens were sitting around him speaking of the
greatness of his achievements believing that he was unconscious. Pericles’ had, in
fact, been listening the whole time and said he was astonished ‘that they should praise
and remember him for exploits which owed at least as much to good fortune as the his
own efforts, and which many other generals had performed quite as well as himself’.
This heroic ending to Pericles’ life may be a fictitious embellishment, added to
Plutarch’s story to enhance the greatness of his character.
Pericles death had a significant impact on Athenian society. When he died in ????
Athens was in the middle of the Peloponnesian war. As the leading citizen of Athens,
his death- according to Plutarch- made the people acutely aware of his loss. His death
was followed by corruption and wrongdoing in Athens which Pericles had suppressed.
After his death, the Athenian state declined in power and magnificence, and
eventually lost the Peloponnesian war and was overtaken by Sparta. According to
Aristotle, ‘as Pericles was the leader of the people, things went tolerably well with the
state; but when he was dead, there was a great change for the worse’.
Plutarch has written that people who resented Pericles’ power turned to other orators
and popular leaders after his death and had to admit that ‘no man for all his majesty
was ever more moderate, or, when clemency was called for, better able to maintain
his dignity.’ This praise of Pericles is perhaps not entirely true as Plutarch was a great
admirer of Pericles.
b) Explain Pericles’ power and influence as a military leader (10 marks)
Pericles’ political leadership and position as strategos gave him extensive power and
influence as a military leader. As strategos he commanded military and naval
expeditions, could conduct preliminary negotiations with foreign states and convene
the Ecclesia. He was also very influential in the Ecclesia’s decision making and could
persuade them to give him military commands against the allies of the Delian League.
In 454 BC, Pericles was elected strategos and the Ecclesia gave him the command of
100 triremes to fight against the Peloponnesians. He defeated an army from Sicyon at
Nemea and then attacked Acarnania. He ravaged and looted the land but was
unsuccessful in his attempt to besiege the city of Oeniadae. His role as strategos and
ability to persuade the people gave him significant power and influence as a military
leader.
Pericles’ military leadership was largely based on his role and influence in the Delian
League. The League was bound to Athens as its leader. As the leading citizen of
Athens, the League provided Pericles with military contingents, ships and money to
fund expeditions and the expansion of the Athenian fleet. For example, the allies sent
military contingents to fight the Peloponnesians in Boeotia at the battle of Tanagra in
457 BC in support of Pericles’ attempts to expand the land empire. Pericles forced the
League to support Athens in pursuing Athens’ own interests thus increasing his power
and influence as a military leader.
Pericles was largely responsible for the increased Athenian control over the allies. He
wished to spend allied money on his building program which involved building both
monumental buildings and also the greatness of Athens. His ability to persuade the
Athenians to his viewpoint meant that he was able to convince them to give him more
military power and influence in order to control the allies and thus maintain Athens’
tribute income. In 453 BC, Pericles installed garrisons in allied states to protect
Athenian inspectors and commissioners sent to install Athenian systems of
government. In 450 BC, Pericles established Cleruchies on the territory of the allies
who were rebelling against Athenian control. According to Plutarch, these Cleruchies
ensured ‘a healthy fear of rebellion’ among the allies. In 448 BC, Pericles lead one
thousand Athenian settlers to the Chersonese, an ally vital to the Athenian corn trade
which was being threatened by Thracian tribes. The establishment of cleruchies and
garrisons in allied states ensured continued Athenian control over the League
members which maintained Pericles’ power and influence as a military leader.
Pericles increased his power and influence as a military leader in 446 BC with the
introduction of The Chalcis decree. This decree forced the Euboean allies, who were
trying to revolt against Athens, to swear an oath which, according to Plutarch,
included statements such as, ‘I will be obedient to the Athenian people.’ He also
installed a cleruchy of 4000 settlers in Euboea to re-enforce the decree. The increased
control over Euboea increased Pericles military power and influence.
Pericles’ military power and influence was so great throughout the Mediterranean that
in 440 BC he was able to usurp Samos’ right to go to war with another state. He took
away the independence of a reliable, ship contributing ally because they refused to
stop a war against Mytilene, another member of the League, when Athens asked them
to. Pericles sailed to Samos with forty ships, seized hostages, established a garrison
and set up a democratic government. When the escaped Samian leaders returned and
overthrew the democracy, Pericles defeated the Samians at sea. He forced them to
pull down their walls, surrender their fleet, pay one thousand two hundred and six
talents and swear an oath of loyalty. This outlines the power and influence Pericles
had not just in Athens but as a military leader throughout the Mediterranean.
Conflict with Sparta threatened Athens’ control in the Mediterranean, thus threatening
Pericles power and influence as military leader. Pericles attempted to remedy this
situation with the negotiation of a formal peace treaty with Sparta in 446 BC. This
was known as The Thirty-Years Peace Treaty. It recognised that Greece was divided
into two power blocks and that neither Athens nor Sparta would attempt to control the
states that were controlled by the other. It allowed Pericles to maintain his military
power and influence over the dealings with the Delian League.
c) Explain how Pericles’ image has been interpreted by ancient and modern
sources (10 marks)
Pericles’ public and private image have been interpreted differently by various ancient
and modern sources.
Pericles’ public image as a political leader has been seen differently by ancient
sources, such as Thucydides and Plutarch, and modern sources, such as Donald Kagan
and Victor Ehrenberg. Thucydides, who wrote at the same time that Pericles lived, in
fifth century BC, greatly admired Pericles’ leadership, believing that Athens ‘was at
its greatest under him’. He believed that he ‘could respect the liberty of the people,
and at the same time, hold them in check. It was he who led them, rather than they
who led him, and since he never sought power from any wrong motive, he was under
no necessity of flattering them, in fact he was so highly respected that he was able to
speak angrily to them and to contradict them.’ Plato is an ancient source who is more
cynical in his interpretation of Pericles. He contradicts Thucydides, believing that
Pericles’ leadership was achieved by manipulating the demos (common people).
Donald Kagan assumes a heroic interpretation of Pericles; ‘Pericles worked
consistently to resist the desires of ambitious expansionists and avoid undue risks. He
plainly believed that intelligence and reason could restrain unruly passions, maintain
the empire at its current size, and use its revenues for a different, safer, possibly even
greater glory than the Greeks had yet known.’ Most modern historians, including
John Thornley and Chester Starr, interpret Pericles as a great leader who was very
popular with the people. This is probably due to the favourable way in which the
ancient sources have depicted his image, making him a hero for Athens because they
were writing for entertainment and not attempting to give an unbiased or entirely
factual account of his image.
Plutarch, who wrote in the first and second centuries AD, was also a great admirer of
Pericles. He wrote that one of Pericles’ political strategies was that he ‘took care not
to make himself too familiar a figure… but reserved himself… for great occasions,
and allowed friends and other public speakers to deal with less important matters.’
This is Plutarch’s interpretation of a man who lived nearly six centuries before him,
however it has been interpreted yet again by modern historians who interpret his
behaviour as conceited or a clever political strategy.
Donald Kagan has written extensively about Pericles’ private life. Pericles was
married to an Athenian girl, however he divorced her and married his mistress
Aspasia. Kagan believes that Pericles ‘loved her dearly and passionately’. Similarly,
Plutarch wrote that their love was of a more ‘erotic kind’. Kagan has interpreted
Pericles’ social life as stimulating and unusual for the time, writing that he had a
‘wide circle of friends and acquaintances’.
Ancient and modern sources view various incidents, recorded by Plutarch, in different
ways. One particular incident which sources draw on to interpret Pericles’ personality
is the time when his son borrowed money from a friend because he believed that
Pericles did not give him enough and then Pericles refused to pay the money back and
took his son to court.
While many sources interpret this behaviour as ‘stingy’, Donald Kagan has
interpreted Pericles as being indifferent to money, and leading a modest social life
without great expenditures. Kagan has also criticised Pericles for his ‘failure to make
his sons men of outstanding virtue and achievement’.
In contrast to these negative interpretations, many modern sources, such as Chester
Starr, admire Pericles. Starr wrote; ‘Pericles was incorruptible… a masterful speaker
and a clear thinker.’ Ancient sources such as Eupolis also admire him for his skills in
rhetoric, ‘in eloquence no man could equal him’. Plutarch too, believed that Pericles
had ‘a dignity of spirit and nobility of utterance… also a composure of countenance…
which deeply impressed his audience’. He also wrote that ‘despite the immense power
he wielded, he had never given way to feelings of envy or hatred and had treated no
man as so irreconcilable an enemy that he could never become his friend.’ An
example Plutarch uses to re-enforce this argument is the day which a man apparently
followed Pericles around all day, insulting him. Apparently, when Pericles reached
home in the dark he ordered a servant to light a torch and see the man home. Kagan
interprets this as a ‘striking display of the restrain and good manners of a nobleman
and the detachment of a philosopher.’ This incident has also been interpreted by some
sources as a display of his presumptuous, arrogant and haughty nature.
Various modern and ancient sources have interpreted Pericles’ public and private
image differently.